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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148651">Welcome to Night Vale</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Snek/pseuds/Silver_Snek'>Silver_Snek</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Snek's Star 'Verse [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Welcome to Night Vale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Welcome to Night Vale Setting, Brothers being assholes, CC-1010 | Fox Needs A Hug, CC-1010 | Fox is a Little Shit, Canon-Typical Violence, Clone Trooper &amp; Jedi Relationships (Star Wars), Clone Troopers and Children (Star Wars), Clone Troopers as Brothers (Star Wars), Clones, Found Family, Fox as Cecil, Life in Night Vale, M/M, Minor Character Death, Night Vale AU, Night Vale Community Radio, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Clone Troopers (Star Wars), Quinlan Vos is a Little Shit, Quinlan as Carlos, SO, Typical Night Vale Violence, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, brothers being brothers, everyone is at least a little freaky, everyone is eldritch, highkey everyone in night vale is eldritch including carlos, ill add actual tags later bc im tired</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:00:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Snek/pseuds/Silver_Snek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's up, listeners? To start things off, I'm being paid thirty bucks to read this quote-unquote "brief" notice.<br/>“The city council announces the opening of a new dog park at the corner of Earl and Somerset, near the ralphs. They would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. Sentient beings are not allowed in the dog park. <br/>"It is possible that you will see hooded figures in the dog park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the dog park.<br/>"The fence is electrified and highly dangerous. Try not to look at the dog park, and especially do not look for any period of time at the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you.<br/>And with that absolute fucking windbag of a notice out of my way, the news."<br/>-- Fox, host of Night Vale Radio</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-1010 | Fox &amp; Clone Commander Thorn (Star Wars), CC-1010 | Fox/Quinlan Vos, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Riyo Chuchi &amp; CC-1010 | Fox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Snek's Star 'Verse [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907557</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Pilot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My Discords bullied me and now I'm writing yet another AU.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, our moons are beautiful, and mysterious lights flash in the sky while we all pretend to sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Welcome to Night Vale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What's up, listeners? To start things off, I'm being paid thirty bucks to read this quote-unquote "brief" notice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The city council announces the opening of a new dog park at the corner of Earl and Somerset, near the ralphs. They would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. Sentient beings are not allowed in the dog park. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It is possible that you will see hooded figures in the dog park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the dog park.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The fence is electrified and highly dangerous. Try not to look at the dog park, and especially do not look for any period of time at the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with that absolute fucking windbag of a notice out of my way, the news.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Queen of the Girl Scouts, Padmé Amidala, who lives out near the car lot like some kind of fucking hermit, claims that the angels have revealed themselves to her.  Said they were about six feet and two inches tall, radiant, and hated the sand. Said they helped her with various household chores. One of them fixed her car— replaced its faulty engine. She’s offering to sell the engine, which has been touched by an angel. It was the “hottest” angel, if that sweetens the pot for any of those thirsty whores I know are listening. If you’re interested, contact Girl Scout Queen Padmé Amidala, out near the car lot, and don't contact me about it. I'm not even getting paid by her to advertise her stupid-ass angel-touched engine.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some dumbass wandered into town today. Now, I'll tell you listeners of my burning question right up front: who is he? What does he want from us? Why his immaculately cared-for leather bracers? Why his perfectly braided and styled hair?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He says he is a scientist. I think I speak for everyone when I say we've </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> been scientists at one point or another. It's a phase, just like how three year old girls attempt to invoke the spirits of the Horrorterrors to see the future. But why now? Why here? Just what does he plan on doing with his weird as shit machines and whirring devices in that lab he's renting- the one next to Dex's Diner?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one does a burger like Dex. </span>
  <b>No one.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>An unfriendly reminder to all the parents out there: be safe when you're taking your brats out to play in the scrublands and the sand wastes. Water them, not unlike that plant you keep on your desk that has been dead for at least a year now, and your coworker replaced with a plastic one, but you haven't noticed yet, because you're a fucking idiot. Make sure there's a shady hiding place nearby, and keep an eye on the helicopter colors.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Are the unmarked helicopters circling the area black? Probably World Government. Not a good area for play that day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Are they blue or gold? That’s the Sheriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Are they painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving? No one knows what those helicopters are, or what they want. Do not play in the area. Return to your home and lock the doors until a Sheriff’s Secret Policeman leaves an empty yet menacing grenade on your porch to indicate that the danger has passed. Cover your child’s ears to blot out the screams. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also remember: Gatorade is practically soda, so give your kids plain old water and maybe some orange slices or some shit like that when they play. Unless you want your child to die early. Then just send them to the library.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A commercial airliner flying through local airspace disappeared today, only to reappear in the Night Vale Elementary gymnasium during basketball practice, disrupting practice for obvious reasons. The jet roared through the small gym for only a fraction of a second. Before it would strike and/or behead any players or structure, unfortunately, it vanished again. This time, apparently, for good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no word yet on if or how this will affect Night Vale Mountain Lions’ game schedule, and also if this could perhaps be the work of their bitter rivals, Desert Bluffs Cacti, also known as the Desert Bluffs Pricks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Desert Bluffs is always trying to show us up through fancier uniforms, better pre-game snacks, and possibly by transporting a commercial jet into our gymnasium, delaying practice for several minutes at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck you, Desert Bluffs. Shove your stupid cactus mascot up your ass.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That new scientist we now know is named Quinlan Vos called a town meeting. Here is how I would describe him if I were into men, because apparently, using words that a damn romance author would write draws more attention to the show: he has a well-defined jaw, and eyes like twin cuts of onyx. His face is perfect, and never mind, I regret agreeing to this. I’m going to vomit if I keep having to describe Vos like this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Girl Scout Queen Padmé Amidala brought home-baked crackers, which were decent, but lacked salt. She said the angels had taken her salt for a godly mission, and she hadn’t yet gotten around to buying more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vos told us that we are </span>
  <em>
    <span>by far</span>
  </em>
  <span> the most scientifically interesting community in the United States, and he’d come to study just what is going on around here. He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I really need to stop doing that. I’m getting on my own nerves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Government agents from a vague yet menacing agency were in the back, watching. I wonder what they’re planning to do with Vos. wonder what they're planning to do with Night Vale. I wonder what they're planning to do with anyone caught between what they know and what they don’t yet know what they know.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>We received a press release this morning. The Night Vale Business Association is proud to announce the opening of the brand-new Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreational Center. I went to fuck around that place recently on their invitation </span>
  <em>
    <span>and their dime</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and I can tell you that it is absolutely top of the line and mostly functional. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sturdy docking areas made from eco-friendly post-consumer material, a boardwalk for non-aquatic species, and plenty of housing for our aquatic residents, as well as many stands ready for local food vendors and merchants to turn into a bustling public marketplace,” or so the pamphlet claims.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, there </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> some concern about the fact that, given we are in the middle of Satan’s asscrack, also known as the sprawling wastelands of nothing but sand and misery named Arizona, there is no actual water at the waterfront. And that is a huge fucking problem in my professional opinion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For instance, the boardwalk is currently overlooking sand, rocks, and more sand, with the occasional sagebrush clump, and even more fucking sand. The Business Association did not provide any specific remedies for this problem, and otherwise avoided directly answering my questions, but they assured me that the new harbor would be “a big boost to Night Vale nonetheless.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe wait until a flash flood and head down there for the full harbor experience. Or get one of the members of the city council to turn the area into quicksand so we can all pretend it’s water.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The local chapter of the NRA is selling window stickers as a part of their fundraising week. They sent the station one to get some publicity, like we’re some kind of damn advertising service. But according to my supervisor, we’re here to serve the community, so I’m supposedly happy to let you all know about it. The stickers are made from good, sturdy vinyl, or so the NRA says, and they read, “Guns don’t kill people. It’s impossible to be killed by a gun. We are all invincible to bullets and it’s a miracle.” Stand outside of your front door and shout “NRA!” to order one. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Quinlan Vos and his team of nerds warn that one of the houses in the new development of Desert Creek, out back of the elementary school, doesn’t actually exist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It seems like it exists,” explained Vos and his stupid face. “Like it’s just right there when you look at it. And it’s between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But, he says, they have done experiments and the house is definitely not there. At news time, the scientists are standing in a group on the sidewalk in front of the nonexistent house, daring each other to go knock on the door like they're a bunch of high schoolers or drunk college students. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A metric fuck-ton of screaming was heard from the Night Vale Post Office yesterday. The postal workers claim no knowledge, like a bunch of liars that all government employees are, and honest passersby describe the sound as being a little like a human soul being destroyed through black magick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Indian Tracker— now, I  don’t know if you’ve seen this guy around. He’s the one that appears to be of </span>
  <em>
    <span>maybe</span>
  </em>
  <span> Slavic origin but probably isn't, and still wears a Native American headdress out of some racist cartoon and claims to be able to read tracks on asphalt, which is bullshit on so many levels. He appeared on the scene, and swore that he would uncover the truth. No one responded, because it’s really hard to take him seriously in that headdress of his. Like, what the fuck, he wore that and expected anyone to think he was actually capable of wiping his own ass?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lights. Seen in the sky above the Arby’s. Not the glowing sign of Arby’s. Something higher, and beyond that. We know the difference, or at least, most of us do. We’ve caught onto their game. We understand the “lights above Arby’s” game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Invaders from another world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here, and it’s about a hundred feet above the Arby’s. And also in the Andromeda neighborhood, but they got here first, and they’re old news.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vos and his scientists at the monitoring station near Route 501 say their seismic monitors have been indicating wild seismic shifts— meaning to say that the ground should be going up and down all over the place. I don’t know about you, folks, but the ground has been as still as the crust of a tiny globe rocketing through an endless void could be. Which is to say, for anyone with more brain than a walnut, there aren't any earthquakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vos says they’ve double-checked the monitors and they are in perfect working order. To put it plainly, there appears to be catastrophic earthquakes happening right here in Night Vale that absolutely no one can feel. Right. Thanks for the really helpful news, Vos.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, submit an insurance claim anyway. See what you can get, right? Cheat the system. Nobody actually reads them anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Traffic time, listeners.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, police are issuing warnings about ghost cars out on the highways, those cars only visible in the distance driving at speeds faster than your eyes can follow and moving like a bat out of hell. They would like to remind you that you should not set your speed by these apparitions, and doing so will not be considered “following the flow of traffic”, and I would like to add that setting your speed according to the ghost cars would just make you a major asshole.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, they do say that it’s probably safe to match speed with the mysterious lights in the sky, as whatever entities or organizations responsible appear to be cautious and reasonable drivers, unlike my brother Fives.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the weather. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>[“These and More Than These” by Joseph Fink]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Welcome back, listeners. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun didn’t set at the correct time today, Vos and his team of scientists report. They’re quite certain about it. They checked multiple clocks and the sun definitely set ten minutes later than it was supposed to, which is pretty ridiculous. The sun sets when it wants to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I asked them if they had any explanations but they did not offer anything concrete. Mostly they sat in a circle around a desk clock, staring at it, murmuring, and cooing. It was kinda disturbing, actually. Like they were looking at a cat, and not a clock. Weird fucking nerds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, we must be grateful to have the sun at all. It’s easy to forget in this arid desert climate that is not unlike being set at the exact temperature of hell, but things would actually be slightly harder for us without the sun. Or not. We’d all be dead, so it doesn't matter much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next time the sun rises, whatever time that turns out to be, take a moment to feel grateful for all the warmth and light and even, yes, extreme heat that our desert community is gifted with. And then feel free to flip it the bird.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The city council would like to remind you about the tiered heavens, and the hierarchy of angels. The reminder is that you should not know anything about this. Fuck me, even I don't know about it. I’m not even all that aware of what I’m saying, and you shouldn't be, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The structure of heaven and the organizational chart are privileged information, or only for people with money out their asses, supposedly known only to the city council members on a need-to-know basis. Please do not speak to or acknowledge any angels that you may come across while shopping at the Ralphs or at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. They only tell lies and do not exist. Angels are not real. Do not listen to Amidala.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Report all angel sightings to the city council for treatment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now a brief public service announcement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alligators: can they kill your children?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of fucking course they can, but their cousins the crocodiles will protect you. Do not believe the lies that the alligators tell you about the crocodiles being the aggressive ones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Speaking of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, its owner, Mace Windu, reports that he has found the entrance to a vast underground city in the pin retrieval area of Lane 5, whatever the fuck that means. He said he has not yet ventured into it; merely peered down at its strange spires and broad avenues. I’m calling him chickenshit on air. Be a real resident of Night Vale. Throw out your self-preservation instincts and investigate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He also reports voices of a distant crowd in the depths of that subterranean metropolis. Apparently the entrance was discovered when a bowling ball accidentally rolled into it, clattering down to the city below with sounds that echoed for miles across the impossibly huge cavern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, you know, whatever population that city has, we probably reduced it by accident. Whoops. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vos, stupid and frustratingly perfect, came into our studios during the break earlier, but rudely declined to stay for an interview. Fucking buzzkill. He had some sort of blinking box in his hand covered with wires and tubes. Said he was testing the place for “materials.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I don’t know what materials he meant, but that box was annoying as shit. When he put it close to the microphone it sounded like, well, like a bunch of babies had just woken up. Really went crazy and was really, really annoying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vos looked nervous. I’ve never seen that kind of look on someone with that sharp of a jaw. He left in a hurry. Told us to evacuate the building. But then, who would be here to announce the news and call out the chickenshit bowling alley and arcade owners?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Settling in to be another clear night and quiet evening here in Night Vale. I hope all of you out there have someone to sleep through it with. Or, at least, good memories of when you did. I sure as hell don't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Today’s proverb: Look to the north. Keep looking. There’s nothing coming from the south.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Glow Cloud</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Do what I always do: if you see something, say nothing, and then drink until you forget about whatever it was that definitely didn’t happen.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The desert seems vast, even endless, and yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Welcome to Night Vale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Night Vale Tourism Board’s “Visitable Night Vale” campaign has finally started after at least three years of it being promised with no follow-through. In neighboring towns, they’ve put up posters that looks like they were made with WordArt or MS Paint at best. The posters encourage people to take their brats to Radon Canyon for a day trip, which even most Night Vale residents aren’t suicidal enough to do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The view is literally breathtaking”, their slogan announces cheerfully, as if the </span>
  <em>
    <span>venti</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the canyon won’t actually suck all of the air out of your lungs and leave you to suffocate in open air. There are promotional giveaways of plastic sheeting and rebreathers, for the losers who are afraid of death.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the news. Anyone with eyes and isn’t Fives has seen the glowing cloud moving in from the west. Well, Echo, you know, the farmer? He saw it over the Western Ridge this morning, and would have thought it was the setting sun if not for the time of day, as if the time of day matters to the sun. The sun sets when it wants to, people, get that through your thick skulls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, the cloud glows in several different colors, similarly to a dollar store strobe light, maybe because it changes from observer to observer, but everyone reports a low whistling when it draws near. The glow cloud is already being blamed for one death. Guys, calm down. We haven’t even seen its lethal weapons yet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But listen, idiots, it’s probably nothing. If we put Night Vale into lockdown for every mysterious event that ended in least one death, we’d get approximately jack shit done. That’s the gist of what the Sheriff’s Secret Police are saying, and honestly, I’m inclined to agree. Actually, I’m gonna encourage you to volunteer your least favorite family member to heed their suggestion and “run directly at the cloud, shrieking and waving your arms, just to see what it does.” I, personally, am volunteering Fives, but knowing him, he would have done it anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Apache Tracker, and I’ll remind those of you with the memory of a goldfish that he is that racist white guy running around in the huge and ludicrously inaccurate Native American headdress, has announced he has found some quote-unquote “disturbing evidence” concerning the recent bout of unholy wailing coming from the Night Vale Post Office, which has been sealed by the City Council. Since the mail is delayed, I highly recommend committing tax fraud, or suing the government and demanding the problem is fixed. Mostly tax fraud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He claims that, using, and I quote, “ancient Indian magicks”, he snuck past the Council security into the Post Office. Honestly, the Council should just get the Sheriff’s Secret Police to guard it instead. These grunts they’re hiring have nothing on us near-exact genetic copies of the Sheriff. He says that he saw all the letters and other package shit had been thrown around like a hurricane went through the place, and that he smelled burnt flesh, with words written on the wall in blood reading “More to come… and soon”, like some shitty horror movie. Can you believe this dickwad says he used “Indian magicks?” What a racist asshole. They’re Native Americans, and they definitely don’t share their knowledge of magick with outsiders. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>My co-worker Thorn, who hosts “Good Morning, Night Vale”, insists I share the weird happenings around the station to generate more donation profit, and when I gave him my trademarked expression of utter and complete disdain, he bribed me with his coffee. So, here goes: the other day, a cat appeared in the men’s bathroom. He seems perfectly fine, but he’s floating four feet off the ground right next to the sink. We all have those days where we are inexplicably hovering in midair, but this little bastard doesn’t seem to be able to move from his current spot. If you pet him, he purrs, which is kinda cute, and he’ll rub against you like a normal cat if you get close enough. Plus, he’s chest height, so I’m pretty sure that makes for some solid cuddles. Not that I’ve tried that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since he’s right by the sink, it’s easy enough to give him food and water and leave out a bowl of blood as an offering to the ancient gods to give him good health. The food was a bit tricky, though, because we only have dog food on hand, and it’s always a fight to get Wolffe to part with any of his dog food. The cat seemed happy enough to eat Wolffe’s kibble while Wolffe glared at him from the doorway. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna try and feed the cat soap as revenge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wolffe doesn’t work here. I’m still not sure why he keeps his dog food here. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, a message from our sponsors:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>White. So much white. Is it snow? Is it clouds? Is it paper, or perhaps ceramic? No, it is not. It is hard and plastic, as unyielding as the men that wear it. You look at one man’s face, and then another, and another, and another. They’re all the same face, staring back at you with the same expression. It’s eerie, and you feel the cold fingers of dread running down your spine. They are silent. They are waiting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What are you waiting for?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This message is brought to you by the secret underground cloning facility that I was made in. Be sure to donate to them, because even if the cloners are all pricks, my little brothers are being raised there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The City Council, for once working with someone that probably isn’t a demon— the someones in question being government agents from a vague yet menacing agency— is asking all citizens to swing by the Night Vale Elementary School gym for what probably isn’t a mandatory basketball game observation. The City Council requests that each citizen arrives at precisely 7 P.M. to fill out a questionnaire about the weird bullshit that definitely isn’t happening around town and anarchist thoughts nobody is having. Because all of us are completely normal, and if we weren’t, then the Sheriff’s Secret Police would make sure that we became normal, or we would be taken away for reeducation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Do what I always do: if you see something, say nothing, and then drink until you forget about whatever it was that definitely didn’t happen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Boy Scouts of Night Vale have announced that they are making some changes to their hierarchy, which will now be the following, from most disposable to most useful: Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, Blood Pact Scout, Weird Scout, Dreadnought Scout, Dark Scout, Fear Scout, and finally, the great and terrible Eternal Scout. As always, you have no say in the sign-up, as your son’s name will be pulled out of a hat and assigned at random. Keep an eye out for the blood-spattered package containing a pistol with a still-warm barrel and complementary beef jerky that will let you know your son has been made tribute. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I, myself, was a Boy Scout when I was a cadet, in the secretive branch known as the Mandalorians, so I can guarantee that your son will be getting excellent training, if he isn’t a wimp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Echo, you know, the farmer, is reporting at the Glow Cloud is directly over Old Night Vale, and is raining corpses of small animals down onto the unsuspecting idiots below. Armadillos, lizards, crows, and so on. Since the animals are dead already, grab a few to take home for dinner, but otherwise just go about your day as usual. Night Vale Animal Control is already on the scene, tossing the dead animals into the Eternal Animal Pyre in Mission Grove Park like they’re last week’s Chinese leftovers that you accidentally left in your microwave and smells suspicious. Since the Glow Cloud is constantly changing colors, how about you take your brats out to teach them the names of colors? It probably won’t go badly, and if it does, you can always make another one. More on the Glow Cloud as it continues to linger. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>An alert that I’m required to say on air, or else I’ll get fired: the Sheriff’s Secret Police are searching for a fugitive named Hondo Ohnaka, who escaped custody last night following a 9 P.M. arrest. Ohnaka is described as a five-headed dragon, approximately eighteen feet tall, with mostly green eyes, and weighing about thirty-six hundred pounds. He is suspected of insurance fraud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ohnaka was pulled over for speeding last night, and the Secret Police became suspicious when he allegedly gave the officers an obviously fake I.D. for some five-foot-eight dude named Frank Chen. If you’re gonna have a fake I.D., don’t be like Hondo Ohnaka. It has to at least look believable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After coming to the obvious conclusion that “Frank” was actually a five-headed dragon, the Secret Police searched his vehicle. Representatives from local Civil Rights organizations have protested that officers had no legal grounds to search the vehicle, and then they backed off like scared raccoons when the Secret Police officials reminded them that our court system will uphold any law made up by unsupervised thugs with guns working for a shadow government. I carry three guns on me at all times, so I’m pretty sure that means whatever I say goes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Secret Police say that Ohnaka escaped custody by breathing fire from his purple head. He was last seen flying over the Red Mesa, shrieking like a banshee, and otherwise living the life I wish I had. The Secret Police are asking for tips leading to the arrest of Hondo Ohnaka. They remind you that, if seen, he should not be approached, as he is literally a five-headed dragon. I, on the other hand, will remind you that no life is worth living if you haven’t done battle with at least one giant lizard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Contacts the Sheriff’s Secret Police if you have any information. Ask for Officer Ben. Helpful tipsters will earn a stamp on their Alert Citizen Card. Remember, if you get five stamps, you receive Stop Sign Immunity for a year, and if you get sixty-six, you are allowed to commit one act of treason. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the calendar, because even if it’s boring and obvious, I’m being paid to tell you asshats about it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Saturday, the public library will be unknowable. Citizens are required to forget the existence of the library from 6 A.M. to 11 P.M. that night. The library will be under renovations. Don’t be a nosy prick, it’s not important what kind of renovations, only that the librarians will not escape this time, or so the City Council claims.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunday is Dot Day. Red dots, preferably in blood but not required for the cowards, will be used to mark the things you like. Blue dots, in permanent marker, will be used to mark the things you don’t like. Do not mix them up. The consequences will be dire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Monday, Rex will be guest starring on Good Morning Night Vale. He will be discussing his work in the Andromeda neighborhood as head officer watching over our otherworldly residents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tuesday afternoon, join the Night Vale PTA for a bake sale supporting refugees from the intergalactic Clone Wars. Proceeds will go to the development of more clones to deploy to our extraterrestrial allies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wednesday has been cancelled, because Mundi from Accounting forgot to add it to the calendar. Dumbass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thursday is a free concert. That’s it. Thanks for being real specific. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>New call from Echo, you know, the farmer? The Glow Cloud has doubled in size, enveloping all of Night Vale, continuing to hum its weird yet intriguing song. Little League is going on with their game, though they’ll have to build an awning over the field, because the animal corpses have grown in size faster than your cat when you leave them at your grandparents’ for a weekend. I’ve had multiple reports of a lion, like the type you’d see in a zoo enclosure, staring with great sadness in his gaze to the sky, wishing he was free, falling on top of the White Sand Ice Cream Shoppe, spelled with a -PE, because they’re pretentious. You can get a free cone if you can figure out how to get it down, but when I suggested they got off their lazy asses and just pushed it off the roof, I was not given a cone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Sheriff’s Secret Police have taken to shouting questions at the Glow Cloud like desperate paparazzi, trying to ask it what it wants. The Glow Cloud, as it does not have a mouth, hasn’t answered. It does not feel as we tiny, pathetic life-forms feel. It had no need for thoughts or feelings or that disease some call love. The Glow Cloud simply is. All hail the mighty Glow Cloud. All hail.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, slaves of the Cloud, the weather.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>[“The Bus is Late” by Satellite High]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I’d apologize, listeners, but I’m not actually all that sorry. Something happened in the earlier section of the broadcast, and I’m not entirely sure what it was. I genuinely have no fucking idea, actually. The tapes were all blank when I tried to play them back, and I keep smelling vanilla, which leads me to believe that Thire is pulling stupid shit again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Glow Cloud is fucking directly off. It’s now just a weird blur in the distance, heading east to drop more corpses, hopefully on Desert Bluffs. Fuck you, Desert Bluffs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe I saw nothing and drank. That is the most likely scenario. According to Thorn, the amount I drink is “unhealthy”.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Finally, a list of things that I scrawled on a paper last night while I was drunk off my ass:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emotions you drown in alcohol in hopes they never breathe again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lost pets, found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lost people, never found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A legion of the unfound, marching endlessly in a desert that is not our own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trees that see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Restaurants that hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A void that thinks, and it is staring back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A face, half-seen, half-remembered, just as you drift off to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trembling hands covered in your brother’s blood when you were too late to save him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coffee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence when there should be noise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Noise when there should be silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing, when you beg for something to save you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something, when you want nothing to see you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clear plastic tumbler cups.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scented dryer sheets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Death.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Good night, Night Vale. Good night. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Today’s proverb: Men are from Mars; women are from Venus; Earth is a hallucination; podcasts are dreams.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Station Management</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It’s contract negotiation season with Station Management here again. It’s always an… interesting time of year. I’m not really allowed to go into details, but I will anyway, because this is my way of reminding Station Management that I am underpaid and they can either kill me or they can finally give me a raise. A win-win situation.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The arctic is lit by the midnight sun. The surface of the moon is lit by the face of the Earth. Our little town is lit, too, by the lights just above we cannot explain. Welcome to Night Vale.</p><p> </p><p>The Night Vale Daily Journal, who copies my reports and publishes them a day later and still gets paid more, is announcing that they will be cutting back their publication schedule to Monday through Thursday only. They claim this is due to a downturn in the literate population, but it’s far more likely that Station Management has finally decided to threaten them for stealing Night Vale Community Radio’s material. For whatever reason, they’re now calling the Thursday paper the “Weekend Edition” and on Sundays, there will be 2% milk in the newspaper kiosks instead of actual newspapers. </p><p> </p><p>The Night Vale Business Association is proud to announce the new Night Vale Stadium, which is right next to the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. This stadium will be able to see fifty thousand, but will be closed and a waste of our tax dollars all nights of the year except November 10th for the annual Parade of Mysterious Hooded Figures, which I personally am an avid supporter of. </p><p>This year, all of your favorite ominous hooded figures will be features: the one that lurks underneath the slide of the Night Vale Elementary playground, the ones that meet regularly in the, need I remind you, <em> forbidden </em> dog park, and the one that will occasionally openly steal your infant brats, and for reasons none of us understand, we all stand by and let him do it. They will all be parading proudly through Night Vale Stadium. With the amount of tax dollars going into the damn building, it had better be an even better parade than usual. It does, however, promise to be a vast, dark, echoey space, perfect for Pagan rituals on every other night of the year, which are boring and normal nights.</p><p> </p><p>It’s contract negotiation season with Station Management here again. It’s always an… interesting time of year. I’m not really allowed to go into details, but I will anyway, because this is my way of reminding Station Management that I am underpaid and they can either kill me or they can finally give me a raise. A win-win situation. </p><p>Negotiation is tricky when I’m not allowed to see what I’m negotiating with. Station Management stays in their office at all times, acting like a recluse, and only speaking through sealed envelopes with letters inside written in blood. Every year, we have to assign them a personal intern, because they cannot write the letters themselves. In order to respond, you just have to shout at the door. Sometimes I can see movement behind the frosted glass, a huge, armored shape not unlike a massive reptile, and I can hear it hissing. I’m also pretty damn sure that the office is some iteration of the TARDIS, because there’s no way something that size fits in this tiny building.</p><p>Oh, that probably did it. I can see down the hall that an envelope just came flying out. I’m either going to reconditioning, getting decommissioned, or getting a raise. I’ll figure that out later, I’ve got shit to do.</p><p> </p><p>Let’s go to the 7-day forecast. Monday will be sunny. Tuesday will be sunny. Wednesday is the beginning of a heat wave. Thursday and Friday, the heat wave continues. Saturday, an electrical storm. Sunday, blood rain. </p><p> </p><p>The city council has asked me to remind everyone about the Clean Up Night Vale drive. It’s our home, and if we leave garbage all over the place, we’re no better than Desert Bluffs. If you see any trash, either throw it away, recycle it, or immediately consume it. If the junk is marked with one of those tiny red flags, don’t touch or approach it. </p><p>“No flag, goes in the bag. Red flag, run,” the city council intoned in a bored unison as they stared into my soul. Or, they would have, but everyone knows gingers don’t have souls. </p><p> </p><p>Listeners, it appears that all across Night Vale, books have just stopped working. Vos and his team of nerds have congregated in the city square, studying a lone broken book sitting innocently on the pavement, but has apparently devoured an unwitting resident who was reading it. The exact problem is currently unclear, but the words being used are “sparks”, “lethal gas”, “biting”, and “meat smell”, which honestly just sounds like Hondo Ohnaka, the literal five-headed dragon who is still at large, accused of insurance fraud.</p><p>For your own safety, Vos is recommending you do not attempt to open a book until the problem is resolved. I suggest you do it anyway, to spite him and the adorable puppy eyes he fixed on the crowd of reporters, silently pleading with us to spread to word. Joke’s on him, I don’t give a shit about him <em> or </em> his stupid, pretty face.</p><p> </p><p>Yet another warning for Night Vale residents, the Used and Discount Sporting Goods store on Flint Drive is a front for the World Government. I have had Intern Feemor study the location for weeks, and he has reported that there is a helicopter pad from which black helicopters regularly depart and land. He stupidly decided to investigate further, and went in to buy a tennis racquet, and we have not heard back from him in several days. </p><p>To the family and friends of Intern Feemor, I am saddled with the burden of informing you that he was lost in the line of community radio duty, and that he will be missed but never forgotten, so on and so forth. He made decent enough coffee, I guess.</p><p>If you’re looking for sporting goods, check out Play Ball!, which is on the same block as our very own Night Vale Community Radio Station. Play Ball! is a front for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, and my siblings can be completely trusted.</p><p> </p><p>Stass Allie, out on the edge of town, called in as a sobbing mess, reporting that a creeping fear has come to Night Vale. She said through her terrified tears that she felt it first as a mild apprehension, then growing worry, and finally mortal panic. From her, it went to the employees of the car lot, who ran in circles screaming like a bunch of cowards. It did not effect Girl Scout Queen Padme Amidala, supposedly because of her angelic protection but more likely because she has no fear in her heart after having it ripped out of her chest, then having it put back after she held it, still beating, in her blood-coated hands. Either way, lucky bitch.</p><p>The rest of town was quickly caught in it, causing a mass fear. I myself jerked out of my argument with Thire to feel my mouth grow dry, before I remedied it by downing a solid quarter of a scotch bottle so I could go back on air without stuttering like a teenager with anxiety.</p><p>The creeping fear has passed, which I was informed of as Stass Allie, out on the edge of town, began to stop crying, and the screaming stopped one by one. Although they could be dropping dead, but I thought the town was getting a bit crowded anyway.</p><p>It is not currently known where the creeping fear will go next. Hopefully Desert Bluffs— fuck those guys, it would serve them right. </p><p> </p><p>Dex called in last night to report another bar fight, because he knows how much I love shaming people for getting too drunk to throw a halfway decent punch. Apparently, newcomer Nerdy Vos went toe-to-toe with our reigning bar fight champion, Savage Opress, whose name continues to be quite possibly the worst in Night Vale. The Zabrak, who came from the planet Dathomir, exhibits the strength and endurance of the legendary Calydonian Boar. </p><p>However, Nerdy Vos came out on top after a likely exhausting and supposedly extremely attractive show of strength that ended in Opress on the floor, unconscious, and Nerdy Vos with a broken nose and a black eye. </p><p>Which I grudgingly admit is kind of impressive.</p><p>Afterwards, though, Nerdy Vos was jumped by Opress’s older brother, Maul, who proceeded to beat Vos until he, too, was unconscious, and left in the middle of the street to get hit by a car. Dex chased Maul off, and helped Vos until he was well enough to go back to the lab just next door. </p><p>That’s right, listeners. That unsportsmanlike move was pulled by none other than Maul, who lives in the Andromeda Neighborhood, apartment 092. He is approximately five foot seven, with prosthetic legs and red-and-black skin, with a  crown of horns and yellow eyes. On an unrelated note, I hear the best way to ensure a Zabrak is dead is to cut off their head.</p><p> </p><p>Now, traffic.</p><p>Damn, okay. </p><p>That looks boring over there, so I guess normal. Come on, break a couple laws. Live a little. </p><p>Yeah… Mhm. I see. Oh, holy shit, did he just rear end that guy on <em> purpose </em>?</p><p>That guy’s going, like, double the speed limit. He could kill somebody. Make sure it isn’t anyone that will be missed, dude. </p><p>This has been traffic. </p><p> </p><p>And now for an editorial. </p><p>I don’t ask for favors much, because I hate having debts. However, I know a significant amount of you owe debts to <em> me </em>, and I’m cashing one in now. Conduct a letter writing campaign to Station Management, who is threatening to shut down my show and send me in for reconditioning. Now, I get this threat regularly and they never actually go through with it, but write your letters anyway, and I will have Station Management’s intern read them off to Station Management. </p><p>If you like this show, and even if you don’t and you owe me a favor anyway, write a letter. Make your voice heard to whatever beast lies beyond that darkened office door. </p><p>
  <em> [A horrible rumbling is heard.] </em>
</p><p>Oh, that must be them. I’ll send you off to a word from our sponsors while I deal with this.</p><p> </p><p>[Pre-recorded.]</p><p>This segment has been brought to us by Dex’s Diner. Listeners, we are proud to have an establishment as fine as Dex’s sponsor us. You will not find better food in Night Vale, as all of the best ingredients are sent to him because of several favors he is owed and black market contracts he has. </p><p>Just the other day, I left the station and was in the mood to eat something other than ration bars, so I went to Dex’s, since that is the only home-style burger joint in the town that has not burned to the ground in an unsolved arson I had nothing to do with and isn’t the reason I get free food at Dex’s Diner. I ordered a double cheeseburger, and damn, is that better than rations!</p><p>I’ve been told that even the hooded figures eat there. The wait staff confirmed it with a hollow look in their eyes. Even the city council offers its ringing endorsement: all citizens are mandated to eat there twice a month, and it is considered a criminal misdemeanor to fail to do so!</p><p>Dex’s Diner: no one does a burger like Dex. <b>No one.</b></p><p>[Recording ends.]</p><p> </p><p>--ste my goddamn <em> lead </em> , you son of a— oh, listeners! Go to the <em> fucking weather! </em></p><p>[“Bill &amp; Annie” by Chuck Brodsky]</p><p> </p><p>Hello, loyal audience. I’m broadcasting live from under my desk, where I’ve set up a base camp with my microphone and sound board, and I am holding two of my three guns. The third was given to my producer so he could defend himself. </p><p>Keep those letters coming! For the first time in my memory, Station Management has come out of their office and is roaming the halls, their deep and bellowing roars echoing around our tiny station. An intern went out to see what Management wanted, and has not returned. If you are related to Lux Bonteri, I am legally obligated to inform you that he is either trampled or being eaten by Station Management. Unfortunately, he will not be missed, as he put salt in my coffee once. Lux and Feemor will be seen again in the Thanksgiving Day Dead Citizens Impersonation Contest, which will be held in the employee lounge in the sewers below Night Vale Mall from 11 A.M. To 9:45 P.M.. There will be two Twister boards and the traditional “pin the tail on the human” game. </p><p> </p><p>I’m going to go outside and demand a raise, with brute force if necessary. If you do not hear from me again, then harass the fuck out of Nerdy Vos and Fives in my stead. </p><p>Goodnight, Night Vale. And goodbye.</p><p> </p><p>Today’s proverb: There’s a special place in Hell. It’s really hip. Very exclusive. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Interlude I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Quinlan's thoughts, and a pterodactyl.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Quinlan Vos considered himself a scientist. An anomalist, specifically. From the first time he had heard the river whispering secrets to a woman that disappeared between blinks, all the way back when he was seven years old, Quinlan had wanted to know how it all worked. He wanted to know the rules of this strange otherness that danced just out of view, if there were any rules at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His late high school years and his college years had been filled with ridicule. Peers laughing at him for believing bedtime stories about the fae, teachers and professors alike rolling their eyes and telling him to look for a more fulfilling career than chasing legends. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But not here. The moment he rolled into town, following the gut feeling he couldn’t explain with his best friends at his back— Obi-Wan Kenobi, who specialized in social sciences, Siri Tachi, who specialized in natural sciences, and Luminara Unduli, who specialized in formal sciences— he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span> Night Vale was special. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Night Vale was </span>
  <em>
    <span>different</span>
  </em>
  <span> in a way science couldn’t explain— or, maybe, in a way science didn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> to explain. But Quinlan was going to explain it. Somehow, he would!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like the house on Desert Creek that doesn’t exist. It seems like it exists, like it’s just right there when you look at it. And it’s between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they’ve been doing </span>
  <em>
    <span>so many</span>
  </em>
  <span> experiments and the house is definitely not there! Cameras don’t pick it up, thrown rocks go through it like a mirage, and animals avoid it. So how did it look like it existed? What made it </span>
  <em>
    <span>nonexistent</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>… well. A question for another day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had taken him only a few hours in Night Vale to find their radio station, and he was only left with </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> questions, if that was possible. Who was the strange host that seemed to know everything? Was it all just an elaborate joke? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The more he looked, the less like a joke it seemed to be. Everything the host reported on had actually happened, even the weird incident with “Station Management” where he had heard animalistic bellows from the tiny radio station, shaking the ground with the force if its inhuman anger, and the rapid </span>
  <em>
    <span>BANG-BANG-BANG</span>
  </em>
  <span> of pistols firing. It was all so </span>
  <em>
    <span>fascinating</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and no matter how many times he encountered the host, who never specified his own name, he couldn’t understand anything more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The host, who would stare at him with sharp, nearly-black eyes, the voids trying to suck him in as he tried to search for answers. The host, who didn’t smile, just leaned back with an unpleasant twist to his lips, like he was biting back his words. The host, who apparently hated him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was all so fascinating! The </span>
  <em>
    <span>host</span>
  </em>
  <span> was fascinating! How did he know all these things, despite there being no evidence he ever leaves the station to get the information? Why did he have so many brothers? Why did he and the Good Morning Night Vale’s host, Thorn, share the face of the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s Secret Police? What would it be like to see a man such as he smile? What was his issue with his mysterious brother, Fives? What would his fiery ginger hair feel like if Quinlan ran his hand through it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>… all purely scientific questions, of course. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quinlan certainly didn’t think the casual venom he would hear being spat over the radio directed at figures most people seemed to be terrified of acknowledging was attractive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Yes, he did.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But! That didn’t matter. What did matter was dragging Siri outside and pointing at the pterodactyl that was missing most of its flesh and all of its organs were turned inside-out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s freaky as shit,” she said, but she said it with a sparkle in her eyes that meant she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>interested</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look over here,” Obi-Wan called, and Quinlan glanced up, seeing his best friend gesturing to the gates of the dog park. The forbidden dog park, of course. Why it was forbidden, he had no idea, but the dog park was off-limits and there were hooded figures that lingered in there when it was so dark you could barely see their black cloaks swishing. “Blood trail.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure enough, a streak of red with various feathers from the poor prehistoric creature— a </span>
  <em>
    <span>dinosaur</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he had an actual dinosaur corpse in front of him!— leading away from the gates. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s take a blood sample,” Siri suggested, already kneeling down and pulling a crystal vial from her bag. She always carried them, and it was finally paying off in this weird town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he agreed, glancing around before pulling out his phone. “Does anybody remember how to contact the Sheriff’s Secret Police?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re already here,” a familiar voice called, and Quinlan turned to see one of the many Policemen that had appeared out of nowhere walking towards him. He, too, looked identical to the host and the Sheriff, with the exception being that the host was ginger and this man had a long scar twisting its way down the side of his face, barely missing his eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We found your pterodactyl,” Luminara pointed out, ever the polite one of their group. “Am I correct in assuming that you wish to return it to its… portal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, the portal. Quinlan </span>
  <em>
    <span>itched</span>
  </em>
  <span> to know what it was, where it came from, but he had seen Jurassic Park. Letting dinosaurs into the modern world was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrible</span>
  </em>
  <span> idea, even if it was for scientific reasons. So, alas, he’d have to let this anomaly slide past him. He’d get another chance with something less dangerous, eventually. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We do,” the man confirmed. “Identifications?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The team pulled out their IDs. They’d been asked for them several dozen times in the month they’ve been here, it had become habit. “Quinlan Vos, and this is my team, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Siri Tachi, and Luminara Unduli.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cody,” the Policeman replied, but didn’t offer a last name. Quinlan wondered if he even had one. “Waxer, Boil! Get off your asses and lug this biter back to where it came from.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir, yes, sir!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, yes. Night Vale was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> interesting place.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>as always, comments are welcomed!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Shape In Grove Park</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nobody knows what the Shape is, but something is happening with it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Close your eyes. Let my words pull you beneath the tides and let yourself drown in them. You are safe here, deep beneath the water. Welcome to Night Vale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Local history nerds are protesting the removal of the Shape in Grove Park That No One Acknowledges Or Speaks About. Their futile protest has been hampered by the fact that they refuse to grow a pair and acknowledge or speak about the Shape. Through a series of grimaces, gestures, and interpretive dances, however, they managed to convey the message that the Shape, whatever the hell it is, is a Night Vale landmark and should be protected as such.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shape offered no comment when I approached it, only moaning lowly and quivering in what I assumed was fear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The City Council refused to provide any reason for its imminent removal, only saying hat any work in Grove Park would be making way for a new swingset, picnic area, and bloodstone circle, most of which are good contributions to the community with the exception of the swingset. If your brats really want to be airborne, just throw them off your roof.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Night Vale Green Market Co-Op had announced that after fifteen years, they will finally begin selling fruits and vegetables. Green Market Board President Tristan Cortez, who owns a title which means nothing, told reporters that recent customer surveys claim that they are tired of empty stalls and pickup trucks in the City Hall parking lot every Saturday morning in the summer and fall. Cortez says that research indicated customers are more likely to buy produce if it is available and for sale, which should have been pretty fucking obvious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cortez said that the decision to sell food was pretty controversial, because many board members and shareholders feel like this will interfere with their ongoing domestic espionage operations, and then promptly realized she had openly admitted to treason and was taken away by the Sheriff’s Secret Police, screaming and begging for mercy. Silly natborn. We clones are raised to shed mercy like politicians shed their humanity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When I called my brother Bly for comment, he didn’t give a straight answer, only sighing and muttering about paperwork before hanging up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Caleb Dume, starting quarterback for the Night Vale Scorpions, has reportedly grown a second head. I don’t know if this is because he got struck by lightning a few days ago, or if he’s just a freak. The second head is older and blind, and Caleb’s bother Depa Billaba-Dume has issued a statement that she has named him Kanan, and that she will be adding a new child to the rankings of the “Best Child in Night Vale” public board, of which little Caleb has been at the top of since his birth. What can I say, I really didn’t want Fives to win when he was a brat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Brothers, not-brothers, and other sundry listeners, there’s a real rat problem here in Night Vale. Many residents have, for some reason, called in to the station and reported that illiteracy, unwanted pregnancies, and violent crime are on the rise in the local rodent communities. Animal Control is addressing these concerns without fire or guns, unfortunately, or even well-placed traps to catch the little biters, and instead hosting after-school programs called “Teach a Rat to Read: Stop the Madness”. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those interested in volunteering should stand in their bathtubs and weep until it is all over. Nothing left. You can let go now. No, not that loudly, I said weep, not sob. There we go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, a message I’m getting paid to read:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tired of your home? Sick of comfort? Come to the hole the the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs, and huddle with us. Who are we? Good question. Why did we spend money on this airtime? We understand you are confused, but: hole, vacant lot, Ralphs, huddle. For a low, low price. Act today, or tomorrow, but not Wednesday. Wednesday doesn’t work for us. We’re almost out of airtime, so just come on down to the hole in the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs and huddle with us, or else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back to our regularly scheduled shit-talking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fuckers and fucked over, I am being told that my quote-unquote “father”, the Sheriff of Night Vale Jango Fett, has been seen conversing with one of Vos’s nerds. Said nerd is ginger with blue eyes and should be immediately treated with fearful respect, as Sheriff Fett tends to kill anyone that speaks to him that isn’t family and anyone outside of that category he doesn’t kill is clearly dangerous in some form. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Update on the Shape In Grove Park That No One Acknowledges Or Speaks About: it is no longer in Grove Park. The City Council, in their </span>
  <em>
    <span>infinite mercy and superhuman omnipotence</span>
  </em>
  <span>, has chosen to move the Shape directly in front of the radio station, where it is continuing to be described only as indescribable. The Shape once again did not comment when I approached it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Night Vale Community Theatre is holding auditions for its fall show, Once On This Island. Interested lesbians— sorry, thespians, but there’s really not much of a difference— should bring a headshot and resumé to the Recreation Centre Auditorium on Thursday night. All auditionees must perform a one-minute monologue, so nothing Shakespearean, and sing one song. Bring sheet music if you would like piano accompaniment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Auditionee will also be required to do a cold reading, and give blood and shit samples along with mandatory radiation testing following the auditions. Do not sing anything from South Pacific. As a fair warning, anything and everything from High School Musical is unofficially banned and this unofficial ban will be enforced by the Sheriff’s Secret Policemen, who are prepared to shoot anyone who starts singing “We’re All In This Together”. Non-humans are encouraged to audition, as Night Vale Community Theatre is supposedly an equal opportunity employer. Actors with long-range sniper training, Kaminoan computer programming, and advanced wilderness survival skills will be given preference. Final casting will be announced in secret, via dreamwalking. No one can ever know who will be on stage until opening night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Update on the Green Market situation: Cortez has been released from custody a changed woman with haunted eyes and pale cheeks. That is all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Have you guys ever thought about the moon? Really thought about it. I was looking out the window last night, and I thought to myself, “Has anyone figured out what that big glowy fucker in the sky is?” It is worth noting that at the time I said this, I had enough alcohol in my system to kill a child. But it made me think a little when I woke up with a massive hangover. What </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> the moon, exactly? Is it a living, breathing thing encased in a shell? Is it a bunch of boring stone? Is it composed of crystals or minerals that the government is hiding from us but selling off in secret?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This has been today's Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. No, I will not be reciting the lame bullshit my producers gave to me for this. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Speaking of brats, Night Vale School District has announced various changes to the elementary school curriculum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clone cadets will no longer be allowed to form a team in gym class. The fatality rate of the teams they are set against has grown beyond tolerable levels, and they will now be split up among several natborn teams to even out the fatality rates again. Honestly, some kids just need to suck it up. We’re trained for killing, and it’s really pathetic that natborn brats cry about losing. I’m sure that the fatality rate is much lower than the longnecks would tolerate, considering there are still natborn children left. They’ve been going easy on you, brats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In response to parent feedback and increasing medical bills, history class will focus more on textbook reading and traditional exams instead of giving the brats the real-life experience they need by putting them through live ammo drills. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Geology is adding a new type of rock to their classes, on the grounds that it’s been awhile since anyone has done that. The new type of rock is kyber, and it is characterized by its ability to charge plasma weapons and its unique ability to sing in the minds of those that draw close to it. Extra credit will be awarded to the first student to find it and make a functional plasma weapon out of it. It should be noted that while non-students will not be getting extra credit for doing it if they so choose, they will be paid and given brief airtime to explain their process in creating their plasma weapon and finding the kyber. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Math and English are switching names, but keeping their curriculum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Astronomy will now be conducting weekly stargazing sessions, with optional blindfolds to protect your brat from the existential terror of the void. Also, Pluto’s existence is once again in debate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All classrooms will be equipped with at least one teacher physically present for the entire instructional period. Astral projection has been banned after third-grader Ezra Bridger discovered how to banish astral projections. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, in addition to the current foreign language opportunities of Spanish, French, ASL, and Modified Sumerian, there will also be Togruti, Ryl, Nautola, Double Spanish, Weird Spanish, Cursive French, Russian, and Unmodified Sumerian offered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, news from the station. Intern Ellie, our newest intern here at the station, has brought me a cup of coffee. I’m considering promoting her to my personal intern, because this is some damn good coffee. Wait— Intern Brant is waving at me from the studio window. Hello there. He’s saying… what? Speak up. I can’t hear you through this soundproof glass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has written on a notepad that the Shape has turned a molten red and is causing whirlwinds in front of the radio station. Apparently there is the sound of a great many voices all chanting in a language humans have long since forgotten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ah, he is now putting up another note. The City Council believes the reason for the violent reaction of the Shape Formerly In Grove Park That No One Acknowledges Or Speaks About is because I have been acknowledging and speaking about it, which has made it angry. I didn’t know that it was a little bitch about people talking about it. They urge me to stop speaking of it, and never do it again, and they will move it somewhere else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After brief consideration, I would like to announce that I will do so on the condition that I am allowed to report on whatever I damn well please except for the Shape. I am writing a contract, and I am prepared to sign it in my own blood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, I must inform you that Intern Brynt has been killed by the Shape in a way I do not understand. To the family of Brint, we thank you for his service to the cause of community radio, and we’re considering joining you in mourning his loss, because he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>okay</span>
  </em>
  <span> at paperwork.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>While I wait for the City Council’s response to my demands, let’s go to the weather. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>[“Jerusalem” by Dan Bern]</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Welcome back to Hell itself, listeners. Good news! The City Council has hurriedly made the mistake of agreeing to my terms and signing the document without reading the fine print, so now I can report on anything I want with the exception of something I was told not to acknowledge or speak about. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The service for Brant was lovely. We threw flowers, and the interns wept. He was buried under the floorboards of the break room, as is customary. His family came and lingered around my studio, as if I would have answers. I do not have answers. I do not have questions, either. I have nothing, as I am a clone and legally not a person who can own things. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is CC-1010, informally known as Fox, speaking to you for Night Vale Community Radio. In the most spiteful way possible, I would like to say, good night, Night Vale. Good night.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Dark eyes lit up as the broadcast ended. “Fox,” a man sighed, rolling it around on his tongue. “His name is Fox.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>Comments are welcome-- it always makes my day to read them, and encourages me to write more!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Drawbridge</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There's a drawbridge being built in Night Vale. And Quinlan is just a tad bit interested in knowing more about the radio host.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Rabbits are imposters. Kill them on sight. Welcome to Night Vale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I’m being told that there are some power outages going on around Night Vale for the past few hours. If you are experiencing one, you either can’t hear this or you’re using your data. Either way, I’m sure you can probably fend for yourself. The Night Vale Municipal Utility Department said that they’re still working on figuring out what the flying fuck is causing the outages, which are “roving back and forth across down in a continuous motion, like a great pacing beast”, so says the script Thire has been trying to shove down my throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those whose neighborhoods have been hit by the outages report the shrieking of hawks overhead, and when their lights came back on, they felt that they were… different people. Their memories and identities were the same as always, but suddenly it was like they were wearing costumes that just didn’t fit right. As though everything around them was unfamiliar, and they had been switched with someone exactly like them, though everything now and forever onwards would be strange. In other words, they feel like clones after getting reconditioned. It’s weird feeling, I know, but suck it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keep some flashlights with preferably working batteries and a childhood diary by your bed tonight, just in case. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The revitalization of the Old Town Drawbridge experienced </span>
  <em>
    <span>yet another setback</span>
  </em>
  <span> this week as engineers made the </span>
  <em>
    <span>absolutely brilliant</span>
  </em>
  <span> discovery that the furniture upholstery they were using for the construction of the towers soaks up water and creates an unstable foundation. This week’s collapse is the third in as many months, a true testament to to the engineer’s competence. Construction crews have attempted to build the bridge tower supports with corrugated cardboard, non-dairy creamer, and ceramic bowls. Predictably, nothing has worked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The engineers, now accepting their own stupidity, are asking the public for help in determining how proper bridge towers are made. If you actually know how bridge construction works, then please send a letter to Bridge Magic, LLC, PO Box 616. Make sure to not add the “k” at the end of “Magic”. They don’t know how magick is actually spelled. Do not use cursive or long words, as I’m eighty-seven percent certain the engineers are actual second graders. Clearly labeled drawings are preferred. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Brothers, natborns, and mortal enemies, it’s time for our annual Pledge Drive. Night Vale Community Radio is, as the name suggests, supported by the community, which consists of sad fucks like you who have nothing better to do than listen to me, plus sometimes Mandalore and the Sheriff when he wants something from me. Any amount you can donate will help us at the station pay for necessities like emergency medical services, water, food, and electricity. A dollar or twenty would do, or a blood sacrifice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Take WZZZ, the weird numbers station broadcasting from the antenna out back of the abandoned gas station of Oxford Street. It broadcasts a monotone woman’s voice, reading out random numbers interspersed with chimes from a bell, twenty-four/seven. That work probably doesn’t bring in a lot of money, unless this is a government operation, and I’m not exactly sure what it actually is, but it’s probably a vital part of this community. Give us a call. We don’t actually have a number, because reasons, so you can just whisper “forsaken algonquinia” into your phone and the Sheriff’s Secret Police agent watching you through your devices will wire us however much money they feel like draining from your bank account. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fox paused. He barely had time to breathe between the reports, these days, and it was getting harder to keep up. He could talk and talk and talk all he wanted, recite the stupid scripts he was given, but one day he felt like his personal flare would die out. The thing that made this podcast uniquely </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> would vanish, suffocated under the weight of everything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he wouldn’t be Fox anymore. Just another clone with a defect, marching to the time of someone else’s heartbeat, silencing the voices he worked so hard to project to the whole town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And a new Voice would be found. A new host for the radio, feared and respected by Night Vale as a whole as Fox himself was forgotten. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Intern Ellie passed him a cup of coffee and a thin file folder. Opening it, he glanced over several email printouts. “Thank you, Ellie,” he told her genuinely, and she grinned back, taking the empty cups off his desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fox bit back a sigh as he scanned the emails, and took a sip of his coffee as he reached for his mic. In the corner of his eye, he saw the red light switch on. He was live, then. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back to work.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>More on the drawbridge disaster. It is chaos in city headquarters. Following the latest in a </span>
  <em>
    <span>long</span>
  </em>
  <span> line of government fuck-ups, the City Council is being criticized for wasting taxpayer money on things that not only are inefficient, but go over budget and over schedule. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One critic, who wished to remain anonymous but I will out anyway because of my scorn for him, who goes by the name of Fives but was decanted with the number CT-27-5555, said that “We don’t even have a river or bay in Night Vale. There would never be a boat to necessitate a drawbridge.” He said more, but I don’t really care to read off the goddamn essay he sent in. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Night Vale Daily Journal has announced that, due to spiraling printing costs, they will be replacing the print edition of their paper with a special new Imagination Edition. I say special loosely, because they aren’t actually selling anything. They say that subscription to the Imagination Edition will be compulsory and automatic, costing sixty dollars a month, but you can protect yourself by casting a protective circle and chanting “Night Vale Daily Journal sucks!” three times. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This Friday is the annual softball showdown between the Sheriff’s Secret Police and the Night Vale Fire Department down at Night Vale High’s Memorial Stadium. Proceeds from the game will go to support the intergalactic war that several million of my siblings are fighting in, as well as to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Even if you don’t like softball, go anyway to support a couple of good causes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Last year’s game ended pretty embarrassingly for the Fire Department, as the Secret Police hit three home runs in the eighth and ninth innings. The firefighters claimed that there was foul play involved, as their entire bullpen was assassinated between innings. Their deaths remain unsolved and uninvestigated. I’m sure someone out there cares about how the families of those relief pitchers feel, but not me. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, this game should be pretty entertaining. Expect a Fire Department fueled by the need for vengeance coming onto the field on Friday. Tickets are ten dollars, or five if you bring an offering to the old gods. Black helicopters will be scanning the entire town, and so those who do not attend will be hunted down and forced to attend. The first five hundred fans to arrive will be given the ability to breathe underwater, whether they want it or not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A notice from City Hall: “There is no digital hum of static coming from the dog park,” Mayor Adi Gallia announced today. The mayor stressed repeatedly in her ninety-second press conference that there is no unbearable noise that gnaws on your soul itself coming from the dog park. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mayor Gallia continued with a request for all residents to understand that there couldn’t possibly be a coded message being broadcasted from the dog park. Citizens are not supposed to be consciously aware of the dog park at all, so they could not be hearing a menacing and otherworldly voice demanding listeners to bring precious metals and toddlers to the dog park. “Dog park,” she repeated. “That could never, ever be real!” She shouted, pounding on the podium with bleeding fists. There were no follow-up questions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, a word from our sponsors.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>[Shuffling of paper, then a sigh.]</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>No.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>[Distantly: “Just do it, man!”]</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Absolutely the fuck not.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>[Distantly: “We get paid for this, it’s our entire job, vod! Just do it and I’ll give you my share of the good coffee.”]</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Fucking… fine. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Quinlan will forever deny that when it happened, he choked on his own spit and knocked over a container of sand samples that Siri was analyzing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aside from that and the hum of the air conditioning, however, the lab was silent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because “it” had been the extraordinarily sudden </span>
  <em>
    <span>moan</span>
  </em>
  <span> from Fox, broadcasting from Quinlan’s phone on the table where the radio show had been playing for the group to hear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obi-Wan snickered, and he was shocked out of his frozen state by a solid hit to the back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not bad, Quinlan,” the redhead laughed. “That’s the guy you’ve got your eyes on? Not bad. Not bad at </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut </span>
  <em>
    <span>up</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” he hissed back, and that just sent Siri into a fit of giggles. “No, you cram it too! Lumi, help me out here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Turning, Quinlan saw that his normally stoic friend’s shoulders were shaking with contained laughter. “I’ve got nothing to say to that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lumi!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Siri stooped, picking up the container he had knocked down as she laughed. “Dude, that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>harsh</span>
  </em>
  <span>. First time you get to hear your future husband moan is over the </span>
  <em>
    <span>radio</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>He is not my future husband!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This just in on the drawbridge: in response to today’s collapse, the City Council has announced that they will increase the project’s budget by twenty million over the next fourteen years. This money will be taken from the cloning facilities, a sixty-five percent hotel tax, and a two hundred and seventy-six dollar bridge toll, which will be discounted to two hundred forty-nine dollars with EZ Pass. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now for a station editorial: Thire, the guy who writes the scripts for each show that I blatantly ignore every time I go on air, has been violently stuffed into the trash can. He is struggling, but I have secured him in it rather well. This is what he gets for being a little </span>
  <em>
    <span>bitch</span>
  </em>
  <span> and trying to humiliate me while I’m live. I’m considering shipping him by mail to Desert Bluffs. It’s what he deserves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the weather.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>[“Aye” by Dio]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Apparently, the Sheriff agrees with me about Fives and him being a pain in the ass, because I have just received an eyewitness report that he was whisked into the back of a windowless, black van, only to reappear hours later with a fully chastised look on his face escorted by several of our rothers shaking their heads at him in disappointment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before we go, I would like to thank everyone who made the generous donations they may or may not be aware they have given to us. During this show alone, we have raised over forty-five grand. This includes a five hundred dollar cash donation and letter from a group I won’t mention by name, but okay, fine, </span>
  <em>
    <span>nerds</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I’ll meet up with you over the weekend. Whatever you discovered had better be fucking worth my time, unlike your whole freakout over the sun setting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thank you again for your involuntary support of community radio. We couldn’t do what we do without listeners like you.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And with that, I leave you to be consumed by your thoughts. Stay tuned next for “Zydeco: Note By Note”, a special two hour verbal description of what zydeco music sounds like. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>Today’s</span> <span>proverb: a million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? A basilisk.</span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm being completely serious here, in the original podcast, the script says, [long, soft moan]. I literally could not resist doing this.</p><p>As always, please leave comments! I love reading them, and they give me the motivation to keep writing!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. History Week</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's History Week in Night Vale, and Fox is sharing the town's history as well as speaking about the usual systematic oppression of students carrying firearms.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It is almost complete. It is </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost</span>
  </em>
  <span> complete… at last. Welcome to Night Vale. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Good evening, listeners. In case you’ve suffered brain damage recently, I will inform you that today is the beginning of Night Vale History Week. This week we will all be learning a bit about what makes Night Vale what it is, or, as the City Council says, “Poke about in the black recesses of the past until it devours our fragile present.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the interest of money, the hosts here at Night Vale Radio will be pitching in with short lessons about a couple points of interest in our town’s history. Let’s start with 4000 BC.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Archeologists believe this is the earliest date of human settlement in Night Vale. Little remains of those ancient inhabitants, except a few cave paintings of their families and hunting practices, and of the dark shapes that would watch them in the distance. Inhuman shapes, lingering just on their peripherals, never coming closer but could be felt watching these ancient people with eyes that knew too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or so I’m assuming from the ancient pictures that were painted on the cold stone walls of a cave those prehistoric humans huddled in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the news. The Night Vale Tourism Board politely begs that whoever is telepathically assaulting the tourists please stop. According to the NVTB Executive Director Madeline LaFleur, there were two incidents in the first week of tourism involving entire damn tour groups sitting prone in their buses suddenly shrieking in unbridled terror, and attempting to blind themselves with rolled up Visitable Night Vale brochures, much to the confusion and amusement of the bus drivers. After reviewing the footage, I can confirm that it’s pretty fucking funny. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>LaFleur is claiming, without any significant amount of evidence to back it up, that tourism accounts for tens of thousands of dollars annually for Night Vale, and that the town prides itself on hospitality, which is just factually incorrect. She is asserting that if good-hearted families come to Night Vale only to be besieged by the truths of reality so warped they can only be called indescribable horrors, then we certainly cannot expect them to return or recommend us to friends. The Tourism Board is asking for help in locating who, or what, is causing these attacks upon the psyches of our visitors, and is offering puppies as a reward for any and all information pertaining to the case. If I was a dog person, I’d probably make up some random bullshit and abscond with my new puppy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It has been several weeks since the self-proclaimed Apache Tracker has been seen in Night Vale. The Apache Tracker, as in the white guy that runs around wearing a ridiculously inaccurate and frankly racist rendition of a Native American headdress. He has not been seen since the incident at the Post Office, and his house has vanished, replaced instead with a meadow with actual streams and shit in it that has become a popular picnic spot on the grounds that nobody born in Night Vale has ever seen water come from the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clearly, the Apache Tracker has been sacrificed to make the land fertile, and I, for one, am pretty damn glad he’s gone. He was such a huge dick, really… no. That implies he was well-endowed. I can all but guarantee that you’d need a microscope to see his dick. Honestly. Good fucking riddance to </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> embarrassment. He made everyone here look racist. He called me an “Indian Brother” once. I’m a fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pacific Islander</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To continue our History Week special feature, in 1745, the first white men arrived in the desert wasteland that was not yet Night Vale. As expansive and featureless as it was, we can all agree that the patch of wasteland that would become Desert Bluffs looked even worse. The explorers took one short look around and immediately left. Their loss. This happened at least three more times, discounting the quote-unquote “normal” family groups that would pass through and also ignore it. Eventually, one group decided that it wasn't as bad as the spot Desert Bluffs would be made on, and thus our proud, dirty, freak show of a city was born.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For traffic…</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Quinlan hummed to nobody in particular, glancing at his phone as it played the NVCR broadcast. He’d caught himself doing that more and more as of late— the humming to no one and looking at his phone, like the image of the host would appear on it in all of his gorgeous, ginger-haired glory, right there in the lab. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wouldn't be the weirdest thing he’d seen since arriving here, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh,</span>
  </em>
  <span> how </span>
  <em>
    <span>interesting</span>
  </em>
  <span> it would be! Teleportation… he should study that when he gets the chance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, pass me that shock staff, would you? I wanna test the chemicals in it and try to see how they managed to get that kind of reaction…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Absentmindedly, he passed the odd staff he had… </span>
  <em>
    <span>acquired</span>
  </em>
  <span> from a very drunk Secret Policeman to Obi-Wan, and let his mind wander.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The year is 1824. The first meeting of the Elder Council, predecessors of the City Council, began. Picture this: men and women, gathered around scarlet-stained flames, raising their voices in mourning for a time long forgotten. They wear crimson robes and crowns made of dried meat. During that three-hour period, many of our sacred laws, civic processes, and traditions were born, such as the City Council membership (which hasn't changed since then, honestly, get with the times, acknowledge nonhuman sentient beings exist already), the byzantine tax system and its penalty system for missing payments, giving incorrect amounts of money, so on and so forth, as well as the official town song, chant, and moan. All records of this meeting were destroyed, and, according to this note that my personal intern Ellie is hurriedly shoving into my hands with an apologetic look— you’ve got nothing to be sorry about, kid, I can promise that— I’m supposed to report to City Hall for reconditioning, and I would like to remind the City Council that they willingly signed a contract in blood binding them to allowing me to speak on air about anything except for one thing, which I will not talk about or acknowledge. So eat my shit, City Council.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a survey conducted recently, and its results were placed on my office desk early this morning. I actually didn’t read them, I just passed it off to Thire and he told me the results in simple terms. Night Vale residents rarely agree on anything, but this time around, it appears that everyone is pissed about the library. Not about the fatality rate, no: we are a people of tradition, and fighting off a librarian with one hand while searching for ACT or SAT prep textbooks with the other is one we will not be going against. No, our complaints are about more rational things: the outdated computer systems, for one. For another, the 14-day lending period is really short, considering how busy all of our lives are and how long some of the books can be. The bloodstone circles have not been cleaned in some time. Supposedly, there’s a faceless spectre attacking anyone in the biographies aisle, which has exactly 33 copies of Helen Hunt’s biography and nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In short, the library sucks, and it’s no wonder why the librarians are always so angry!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Night Vale High thoroughly kicked the asses of their bitter rivals, the Desert Bluffs Vultures, last night. Two-headed quarterback, Caleb and Kanan Dume, credit their victory to each other, going as far as to having a friendly debate over who was controlling their body the most during the game. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Speaking of the high school, the word is that they are adding metal detectors to all entrances, something sixteen-year-old Ellie, my intern who makes pretty good coffee, confirmed after she was forced to turn in her shock baton. Several parents we spoke to said that NVHS students have always been recipients of government-issued weapons, and the school board’s decision to put up metal detectors impinge on the rights of teenagers to defend themselves or be supporters of government conspiracies. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Intern Ellie here is being trained to someday be a security guard here at Night Vale Community Radio, which houses yours truly, the Voice of Night Vale. Now, we all know that the past Voices cannot die unless killed, and that makes them a prime target for assassination, rest in peace to my predecessor and mentor Revan. They heralded in a new era for transgender and other LGBTQ-plus groups as the first genderfluid Voice. They were killed on the steps of NVCR as they came back from a coffee run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that knowledge in mind, is it right for a school to take away my intern’s weapons, as she is in training to someday prevent such a tragedy from happening again? Is it the duty of the school to say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“No, child, you cannot have grenades or assault rifles in the classroom.”</span>
  </em>
  <span>? No! I think </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At any rate, the metal detectors will be fully installed on November 1st, and any weapon found on a student will be handed over to the counselor, where it can be picked up after classes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Back to History Week. In 1943, as a part of the war effort, Night Vale citizens dressed in black cloaks and plague masks, gathering around their bloodstones and offering sacrifices to the old gods, chanting ancient spells and flinging curses onto the heads of the Axis troops day in and day out. To this day, we still get federal discrimination for not sending any of our young men when the draft came, calling our rituals “witchcraft” and “superstitious nonsense”. While, yes, some of our rituals are Pagan, it isn’t nonsense, and we dedicated every man, woman, child, and non-human in Night Vale to the effort, rather than just a measly fifth of our population. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, a word from our sponsors: Carp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For our next installment in Night Vale’s History Week takes place in the future. In 2052, the Scion of the Dark Order will descend, realize they mistimed the prophecy, and reascend, making themself and the Dark Order look stupid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The seventh siege of the Great Night Vale Temple will rage on. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The plague of buzzing boils will kill thousands, and annoy thousands more with the constant buzzing. I’m annoyed just thinking about it. I think I’d rather die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The City Council will assume its final, horrible form, devouring half of Night Vale’s population despite the desperate efforts of a library-hardened militia. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Approval ratings for the mayor will reach an all-time low, but it will be shocking that there are ratings at all, considering the fact that there hadn’t been a mayor for over three decades. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And now, the weather. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>[“Despite What You’ve Been Told, by Two Gallants.]</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Night Vale Business Association is hastily claiming that the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area was not something that ever existed, and instead it was a hallucination shared by the entire town’s population. They are also declaring that, because of this, they have never suffered any breed of disastrous business failure, which is bullshit on so many levels. I toured the facilities on their dime, even reported about it, and the buildings still exist. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For our final story, let’s look at the very recent past. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yesterday, I had a ration bar for breakfast, a ration bar for lunch, and for dinner, I drank until I blacked out and woke up curled under my desk. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yesterday, Queen of the Girl Scouts Padmé Amidala was seen digging a small box out of the sand wastes, cradling it to her chest like an infant child and carrying it to her own property, burying it under her porch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yesterday, someone I do not know did something that I did not see, and it is impossible to tell who they were or what they did, as even the results of what they did will be lost in the constantly breaking and reforging chain of causation and consequence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Most importantly, yesterday, we all got through another day, and now we say goodbye to the souls that didn’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And from this moment in history, spanning forever onwards and yet ending all at once, good night.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay, just for those who aren't already in the loop: I got hit with some really bad news recently, and I'm struggling to come to terms with it. Please be patient with me.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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